Telecommunication switching systems exist in which other authorized participants enter into a connection between two participants and are thereby able to listen in and participate in the conversation. This feature of performance is in particular desired in systems for traders or personal secretaries. Trader systems are predominantly used in banks, for, e.g., exchange dealings. In such applications it is often desirable for two of the participants in the connection to temporarily speak to each other confidentially and therefore all other participants of the connection have to disconnected from this connection and then again be linked in at a later point in time. The disconnection can be initiated by any participant of the respective connection. The disconnected participants are placed in a hold state so that he or she can be linked back into the connection by one of the two participants still connected to the connection. During disconnection, the connection to the terminals of the disconnected participants is therefore not terminated definitively; only the listening and speaking circuits are disconnected from the connection.
The aim of the present invention is to state a method that ensures a reliable and clear the present invention provide for reliable and clear.
This task is solved by the features listed in the characterizing portion of patent claim 1 or patent claim 2. Preferred embodiments of the invention are listed in additional claims.
The method in accordance with the invention allow network of terminals, that can be connected via nodes, to exclusively leave two selected terminals of a large number of terminals that are temporarily linked to each other and make up the interlinking network, in the connection upon the request of any terminal and to temporarily disconnect the remaining terminals from the interlinking network. For this, no overriding station that controls this procedure is required in the network so that nodes of the same type can be implemented in the network without any exception. The network can thereby be easily complemented with additional nodes of the same type.